Letter: Referendum on electoral reform a waste

It wont get you proportional representation and it wont make every vote count. What it will do is guarantee that the electoral reform process, whenever it gets completed because there are no timelines, will be followed up with a national referendum. That’s it. Vote for this and you are voting to hold a national referendum.

The NDP and the Green are going to loose the moral high ground on this vote. They both compromised their integrity when they signed a majority report recommending a referendum then submitted a supplementary opinion saying they didn’t want a referendum. Well what is it then? Do you they want a referendum or not? On one hand a majority of members on the ERRE committee all recommended a referendum then once behind closed doors they slyly changed their mind? It’s called principled integrity and the NDP and Green have lost it.

I want electoral reform but I do not, under any circumstances, want it done by a referendum. Look at Scotland two years ago, the UK EU vote, the Quebec separtism vote, not a single one of those referendums united a country and it could be said that the referendum has further fractured those societies.

The NDP and Greens are stuck in an emotional argument and cannot see that they are playing into the Conservatives hand. The Conservatives never wanted electoral reform and to ensure it would never happen they insisted on a referendum and now you see good people like Nathan Cullen and Elizabeth May thinking that’s a good idea.